Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum

2014-2015 Program Calendar

FALL SEMESTER 2014

Unless noted, all programs begin at 6:45 p.m. in the Athenaeum

A speaker name that is highlighted indicates a link to a streaming video

Thursday,September 11

Robert Valenza, Dengler-Dykema Professor of Mathematics and the Humanities, CMC; author, The Best of Civilization (2007) and Linear Algebra: An Introduction to Abstract Mathematics (1999); "What We'll Do To You If You Let Us"

August Kleinzahler, poet; author, The Hotel Oneira (2013) and Sleeping It Off in Rapid City (2008); "Poet Reads from His Work"

Monday,September 22

Barbara Metcalf, professor of history emerita, U.C. Davis; president, American Historical Association (2009-2010); author, Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860-1900 (2014) and Islam in South Asia in Practice (2009); "Dogs Speaking and Women Writing: A Muslim Queen on Islamic Law and Empowerment in 19th Century India"

Tuesday,September 23

John J. Pitney, Jr., Roy P. Crocker Professor of American History and Politics, CMC; co-author, American Government: Deliberation, Democracy, and Citizenship (2011) and co-author, Private Anti-Piracy Navies: How Warships for Hire will Change Maritime Security (2013); "What's At Stake in the Mid-Term Election?"

Anis Mojgani, spoken word poet; National Individual Poetry Slam Champion (2005 and 2006); Individual World Cup Poetry Slam winner (2007); author, Songs From Under the River: A Collection of Early and New Work (2013) and The Feather Book (2011); "Poetry Slam!"

Charles Ogletree, Jr., Jesse Climenko Professor of Law; founder and executive director, Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, Harvard University; co-editor, Life without Parole: America's New Death Penalty? (2012) and author, The Presumption of Guilt: The Arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Race, Class, and Crime in America (2010); "Race, Racism, and Discrimination in America"

Monday,September 29

Ronald Herring, professor of government and international professor of agriculture and rural development, Cornell University; editor, Oxford Handbook on Food, Politics, and Society (2014) and contributor, Social Movements in India: Poverty, Power, and Politics (2013) ; "Genes in the Food! What’s At Stake in Global Battles over Biotechnology?"

Tuesday,September 30

Andrew Sullivan, blogger, The Daily Dish, author, Intimations Pursued: The Voice of Practice in the Conversation of Michael Oakeshott (2008) and The Conservative Soul: Fundamentalism, Freedom, and the Future of the Right (2007); "The Future of the Media"

Wednesday,October 1

Robert Ross M.D., president and CEO, The California Endowment; "The Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the Way Forward"

Thursday,October 2

Uri Caine, piano; Composer-in-Residence, Mannes College the New School for Music (2013-2014); artist, Sonic Boom (2012) and Siren (2011); "Uri Caine in Concert"

Adam Michnik, editor-in-chief, Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland; author, The Trouble with History: Morality, Revolution, and Counterrevolution (2014) and In Search of Lost Meaning: The New Eastern Europe (2011); Jonathan Bolton, professor of Slavic languages and literatures, Harvard University; author, Worlds of Dissent: Charter 77, The Plastic People of the Universe, and Czech Culture under Communism (2012) and editor and translator, Wernisch, In the Puppet Gardens: Selected Poems, 1963-2005 (2007); "Dissidents, Then and Now" (12:00 p.m. Parents Dining Room)

Tuesday,October 28

Adam Michnik, editor-in-chief, Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland; author, The Trouble with History: Morality, Revolution, and Counterrevolution (2014) and In Search of Lost Meaning: The New Eastern Europe (2011); "The Trouble with Democracy after Communism"

Andrew Feldherr, professor of classics, Princeton University; author, Playing Gods: Ovid's Metamorphoses and the Politics of Fiction (2010) and editor, The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Historians (2009); "History in the Mist: Reviewing Visual Representation in Ancient Historiography"

Thusday,October 30

David Sandalow P'15, Inaugural Fellow, Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University, School of International and Public Affairs; United States Under Secretary of Energy (Acting) (2009-2013); author, Freedom from Oil: How the Next President Can End the United States' Oil Addiction(2008) and editor, Plug-In Electric Vehicles: What Role for Washington? (2009); "Can the U.S. and China Work Together to Fight Global Warming?"

Monday,November 3

Robert Schenkkan, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright; author, All the Way: A Play (2012) and The Dream Thief: A Play in Two Acts (1999); "The Great Society: Writing the 1960's in Drama" (12:00 p.m.)

Monday,November 3

Ann Gold, Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion and professor of anthropology, Syracuse University; co-author, In the Time of Trees and Sorrows: Nature, Power, and Memory in Rajasthan (2002) and Listen to Heron's Words; Reimagining Gender and Kinship in North India (1994); "Shravan Kumar Stepped Here: Myth, Morality and the Market in a Provincial Rajasthan Town"

Christopher Kelly P'18, co-author, America Invades: How We've Invaded or Been Militarily Involved with Almost Every Country on Earth (2014); "The Surprising Consequences of American Invasions"

Thursday,November 6

Stephen Walt, Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Affairs, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; author, Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy (2005) and co-author, The Israel Lobby (2007); "Follies and Fiascoes: Why Does U.S. Foreign Policy Keep Failing?"

Jeremy Huw Williams, baritone; principal singer, Welsh National Opera; Paula Fan, piano, Tucson Symphony; Regents' Professor of Music, University of Arizona; "The Great War in Poetry and Song"

Tuesday,November 11

J. David Velleman, professor of philosophy and bioethics, New York University; author, Foundations for Moral Relativism (2013) and The Possibility of Practical Reason (2009); "Morality Here and There: Aristotle in Bali"

Edward Watts, professor of history, U.C. San Diego; author, forthcoming The Final Pagan Generation (2015) and co-editor, Shifting Cultural Frontiers in Late Antiquity (2012); "A Job-Friendly Education and the Humanities: The Late Antique Side of the Story"

Monday,November 17

William Deresiewicz, essayist and book critic; author, Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life (2014) and A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter (2011); "Leader-sheep and Elite Education"

Geoffrey Megargee, senior applied research scholar, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; author, War of Annihilation: Combat and Genocide on the Eastern Front, 1941 (2007) and Barbarossa 1941: Hitler's War of Annihilation (2008); "Cataloging A World Behind Wire: The USHMM Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos"(12:00 p.m.)

Thursday,November 20

Ashley Merryman, co-author, Top Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing (2014) and NutureShock: New Thinking about Children (2011); "Finding Your Inner Top Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing"

Monday,November 24

Nancy Aossey, president and CEO, International Medical Corps, Los Angeles: a global first responder that delivers emergency relief and training programs on the frontlines of war, natural disaster and disease; "On the Frontlines of Ebola, War and Disaster: 30 Years as a First Responder"